MAR 98-006

The Race to Settle Mars, Earth having a Baby
What’s it worth to the parent civilization?
Peter Perrine (Moderator)
PO Box 41479, Plymouth, MN 55441

Recent technological breakthroughs in Mars mission design have vastly reduced the cost of birthing a new human habitable world on Mars. Our next president and congress will weigh the value of being the parent civilization that settles Mars. What benefits will the parent civilization get and what are they worth compared to the cost? The question is like asking what the value of a child is to its parents. We will use this parent-child analogy, during this session, to develop a framework to help our leaders think about humanity’s future on Mars. Please come to the session with your own ideas about the benefits of having your own child. Bring your brain, your Case for Mars book, and any papers you may have in this area. Someone bring a calculator, a Mars atlas, and an Earth economic atlas. For each benefit of children, we will list an analog benefit to our civilization of settling Mars. We will then attempt to quantify or characterize the benefits listed to our civilization. The result will be a group paper. It may serve as a primer for a case study for the Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government. It is hoped that this paper as it may be rewritten will serve as an important intellectual foundation for use by our next president and congress as they weigh humanities future.